The quick races, time trails, and drift challenges aren't much incentive to pull your nose out of the career mode. And the multiplayer is hardly worth booting up. You can only play splitscreen, and without AI cars.
It doesn't take long to get over the novelty of the included steering wheel, and beyond that this is a very unremarkable racing game that isn't much fun.
GT Pro Series is the international/localisation/Wii version of GT Cube a GameCube only now a Wii only. While on GameCube it was up against Auto Modellista, R Racing Evolution & likely others for third party racing games with a career mode and simulation focus.
GT Pro Series is an oddity on the Wii. No GameCube/Classic Controller but the Wiimote motion/side angle works. Most competitors are not as high of quality of the simulation or career focused. You had Need For Speed & many arcade/open worlds but if you were looking for something else you didn't have many so this game even if not perfect stands out and kind of deserves more respect, not comparing to other games on the market.
So if looking for a simcade cup career game (not that deep of physics/feel), campaign circuit racer with some drifting/time trials as side modes, reasonable length of career, varied event types, only Japanese cars of the compact, sport, K car, muscle & more range and a console version of GT Advance games, ok cell shading graphics, you'll have some fun with this one.
To start with, content in GT Cube/Pro Series isn't as large as the GT Advance games. You do get your varied circuit, winding & city tracks but not as many unlike the handheld entries you are going to see the same few tracks here. Which isn't bad, many other racing games have around 10 to sometimes 40 tracks depending on the game but it's still something to keep note of. I think it has about 11 or so & reverse for each. GT Advance 1-3 have tons more for each event so it's very different to compare whether time/GameCube/Wii disk sizes than how they were able to scale things on GBA carts with track layouts.
There is license tests (very few at least 3-5 usually 3 in the GT Advance games & think it's about 3 or 5 here they don't take long & aren't hard to beat if you know what your doing) similar to Gran Turismo & they do a good job being a fair test of how to drive, do before each new phase & next set of cups/championships. The times I think are similar to GT Advance of around 2 seconds is a Gold (some vary higher), & the lower each time it's silver & bronze. They aren't preset times like Gran Turismo so if your within the range of seconds it's comparing to you'll get the time right.
The car list is good with notable cars, some ones people fans of the wacky side of Japanese cars will appreciate. No international cars only Japanese brands but if your ok with that you'll get to enjoy the notable featured.
Cups are varied just like any simulation/circuit/cup based racing game. Your K cup, SUV, sports, particular cars ones.
The controls on GameCube are good on Wii you do have Wiimote side layout button controls & motion steering + some buttons. I used buttons & they work very well. It is limited & you can't use the horn with buttons like you can motion control presets but it's a trade off & you don't need the horn but it's a nice detail.
The graphics don't compare to Auto Modellista a game with a better cell shaded style but this game does a fair job still with it's graphics you can still tell what each car is & it can look nice just not as detailed as Auto Modellista, Borderlands or other more detailed cell shaded games.
The physics/driving model can be a bit odd at first, but eventually drifting & driving is pretty easy to get used to. Drifting to reach 25 score, so can be a challenge but if you turn the car enough times you can keep a drift going, it isn't as flexible for holding a drift like other games it's best to keep turning left & right to gain more drift transitions to hold your drift count.
If you want a solid enough racing experience with a career mode, multiplayer split-screen, drifting & to enjoy a few hours and with one of the few cell shaded racing games and have a Wii and can't find a racing game meeting certain criteria your looking for I'd recommend this.
You have Need For Speed games on Wii, Excitebots/Excite Truck & other arcade/open world racing titles & they offer a lot of fun, but if want to avoid some like GP Classic Racing/other PS2 to Wii ports & other lower quality titles I'd recommend this one as a better option if looking for a career/circuit based racing game as there isn't really any offered on the Wii or of such a quality.
It isn't perfect nor does it compare well against others on other platforms but for what it is, it's a good game for a platform like the Wii without many racing games of this type compared to the GameCube's handful.
Even Switch's handful like Gear Club Unlimited 1&2 or Grid Autosport or Wreckfest all solid car simcade racers for how limited the Switch is for such titles.
With few racing titles that vary on Nintendo platforms. You can do better on other consoles.
But if you have a Wii this game is just the right mix of content that it does offer to be a racing game of a certain type in many people's collection.
This is easily the best wii simulation racing game, the general gameplay is more focused around drift racing than grip racing and for some reason this upsets people. The game has 80 cars, a linear but fun campaign and a small customization system. Some of the cars include the ASL RS01, Daihatsu Midget 2, and a Toyota 86 and quite a few cars from inital d. Some even have the right body kit and the way the game works it's more like an inital d game the the actual games. My only complaint is there are only 13 courses, I feel like 20 would definitely be better but ign was putting pressure on them so they did a quick release. Nobody talks about this, but if anyone says anything bad about this great game, remind them that ign ruined this game series just to get a paycheck...
How can a game this bland and uninteresting compete with the likes of "Excite Truck" and "Need for Speed: Carbon," let alone the scores of racers available on other consoles? Simply put, it can’t; and it should be avoided at all costs.
The soundtrack is a shocking state of affairs, the cars sounding how you think mud would sound if it could talk and in the background is a Europop house soundtrack.
GT Pro Series simply fails to deliver any sort of substantial racing experience. No matter how many cars you have or how many ways you can tweak them out, the fact is, if it's no fun to actually drive around, then it fails as a racing game.
I find it appalling that publishers can get away with charging $50 on a game that might be worth $10 on a good day. The only thing you can do to let publishers know that we're not going to put up with this kind of crap is to not buy GT Pro Series, a task that should be easy considering the quality of the product.
It's bewildering as to why this is even a launch game, let alone how anyone thought it would be fun to <I>not</I> drive a car round a crappy looking track with a broken plastic steering wheel. [January 2007, p.54]
People dont seem to realise that this is actually a good game. It was a launch title for the wii so it wouldnt have been able to fully utilise the wii. The controls are wuite good utilising the Wiimote like how Mario Kart Wii would later down in the Wii's life. The looks have a classic and arcade like feel , like older arcade racers in the arcades and the arcade looks is just like the controls and gameplay. There is a variety of things to do. Championship where you do races againts ai that do get progressively more difficult and is the way to unlock new cars and parts to make your cars faster and get faster times on tracks. Quick Race where you simply choose a car that you have already unlocked and do a quick race of 3 laps around any unlocked tracks with ai. Time Attack which is basically a time trial mode and is the best way of knowing the fastest times for courses and beating them. Drift combo is exactly as named on the tin where you go around a track drifting and trying to get a high combo. There is also a multiplayer split screen mode as well to play with friends although no online mode was done for the game. You can also see your fastest time by going into Options and then selecting ranking to see your 5 fastest 3lap times as well as your fastest 1 lap time and also shows another element overlooked by other people to say its an arcade felling racers because when you get a fast 3 laps time or a flast single lap time once you akip the replay it will go to the ranking screen for that track and you are able to put in a 3 character thing so if you and a friend lets say then you would be able to distinguish which time is whos. And just like mario mario kart and other games,this game eventually got a speedrunning page on ****.
If you can get past the sound effects, off track this game isn't too bad. The career mode is generic but decent and the other modes of the game offer lots of play value. The upgrade system is well put together. Plus the cars look like they came straight from an anime. But while racing the game falls apart. Enviroments look terrible, there's almost no tracks, and worst of all the physics are absolutely awful.
But if you want to drive an OG Daihatsu Midget II then get the game, you'll have "fun" for a few minutes I guess.
SummaryGT Pro Series is an exclusive car-racing game for Nintendo’s Wii. With more than 80 licensed cars, tons of tuning options and its fluid drift-style controls and physics, GT Pro Series perfectly fits the Wii’s unique gameplay approach. It’s a fast-paced racing game that takes full advantage of the Wii Remote. [Ubisoft]